Thus:
'_Grub-street_, the name of a street in London, much inhabited by
writers of small histories, _dictionaries_, and temporary poems; whence
any mean production is called _Grub-street_[869].'--'_Lexicographer_, a
writer of dictionaries, a _harmless drudge_[870]'.
[Page 297: The gloom of solitude. AEtat 46.]
At the time when he was concluding his very eloquent Preface, Johnson's
mind appears to have been in such a state of depression[871], that we
cannot contemplate without wonder the vigorous and splendid thoughts
which so highly distinguish that performance. 'I (says he) may surely be
contented without the praise of perfection, which if I could obtain in
this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my
work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the
grave; and success and miscarriage are empty sounds, I therefore dismiss
it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure
or from praise[872].' That this indifference was rather a temporary than
an habitual feeling, appears, I think, from his letters to Mr.
Warton[873]; and however he may have been affected for the moment, certain
it is that the honours which his great work procured him, both at home
and abroad, were very grateful to him[874]. His friend the Earl of Corke
and Orrery, being at Florence, presented it to the _Academia della
Crusca_.
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